Winter-time arrives on Sunday morning as clocks go back an hour

German night trains will stop for an hour at 2 am to wait for the clocks to catch up with them, ensuring they arrive at their destination in accordance with the timetable, according to Deutsche Bahn.

Although the hour’s difference may catch out some people who forget to reset their clocks, most people will welcome an extra hour of sleep.

However commuters are warned to take additional care when driving through rural areas as the number of accidents involving wild animals often increases at this time of year – because more traffic is underway during the hours of dawn and dusk.

Initially introduced to save energy, the summer- and winter-time rules have long been maligned for failing to achieve that goal.

“The energy industry can barely see any savings effect from the changing of the clocks,” said Hildegard Müller, manager of the German association of energy and water industry.

“One of the most important arguments for the introduction of summer-time was to use the daylight hours better, in order to save energy. But this argument has not proved tenable.”

She said that the longer summer evenings generated by summer-time regulations did reduce the amount of energy used for lighting – but increased how much was used for televisions.

DPA/The Local/hc